Traveling gives better appreciation of home

Much like a student wondering how the summer could pass so fast, I feel the same way about a recent vacation.
I know I was gone. The knee-high grass is proof.
My problem is that I was so anxious to be carefree that it took forever to reach that sense of relaxation. Pathetic, I know.

GROWING UP, I idolized my piano teacher Marlene Lenski, at least once I got over being scared to death of her dominating presence. She had big, strong hands that pounded the keyboard. When she showed me how a piece should be played, she’d close her eyes, lost in the music. She never wore makeup and her straight hair couldn’t hold a curl if it tried. Which I’m sure she never did.
When I got older she’d let me come by to visit. During those times she smoked with abandon and cut through the haze with big, demonstrative waves of her arms.
As a teenager I thought she was super cool and I admired what I viewed a most unconventional life mostly because she had never married. She was the first person to make me question what I thought was laid out before me in June Cleaver fashion.
From her travels around the world she’d show me mementos and tell me I, too, needed to get out of Dodge. So it surprised me to learn one day that she had put away her traveling bags.
“But what about India, Africa, Tahiti?” I asked, incredulous that with her wherewithal she could be anywhere in the world.
“I’m done,” she said. “Now, I just want to stay home,” which to my young mind seemed a betrayal to everything she had encouraged me to do.

EVERY TIME Brian and I are in Colorado I drool over the mountain homes posited among alpine flowers and bubbling brooks. I  picture myself as spry and nimble as Heidi of lore. I look at real estate sites — which quickly bring me back to reality.
Brian tolerates my chatter about such things, but I know he hates it, especially when we come to the foothills of Boulder where homes sit high above the city.
But when we pulled in late last Saturday night I felt almost like a kid again, going from room to room, running outside to see if my plants and flowers had survived, giving the cats a big hug.
“I’m so glad to be home, and I never want to live anywhere else,” I said.
And all of a sudden I thought of Marlene, finally able to understand her sentiments.
It’s wonderful world out there, but, more and more, I appreciate the comforts of home.